Farms begin using toxic strawberry fumigant

After the California Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the wildly unpopular fumigant methyl iodide for use in California, enough brouhaha ensued that incoming Governor Brown felt compelled to say he would take a “fresh look” at the issue.

But the fumigant is already going into use for the spring/summer planting season, and the coming weeks are predicted to be peak spraying use time. So when will this fresh look come?

PANNA has teamed up with the online petition service Change.org to pressure Brown to do something before it’s too late. Almost than 25,000 people have signed the petition asking Brown to intervene.

A lawsuit has also been filed by environmental groups, including Oakland-based Earthjustice, to overturn the pesticide’s approval.

My emails to the governor’s press team went unanswered. DPR responded with some guarded emails, citing the lawsuit, defending their controversial former boss, Mary-Ann Warmerdam and outlining [PDF] how California’s regulations on methyl iodide were more stringent than the U.S. EPA’s.

They are, thankfully, but methyl iodide has been called “one of the most toxic chemicals on earth.” It’s so cancer-causing that scientists who study the disease expose their lab rats to methyl iodide as their go-to method of making sure they develop cancer.

Sustainability experts say there are other ways to grow strawberries — and chiles, on which methyl iodide is also used — but that Big Ag-friendly state bodies are only willing to consider one-step chemical substitutes.